Clara George Movies
Director Yves Simoneau explores the plight of the American Indian in the later half of the 19th century in this docudrama exploring the effects of westward expansion and based on the book by Dee Brown. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aidan Quinn, Adam Beach, (more)
Although al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners on September 11, 2001, only three reached their intended targets. United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that departed late from Newark to San Francisco, crash-landed near Pittsburgh instead of becoming a weapon against the White House or the United States Capitol. This speculative cable-TV docudrama imagines how the flight might have played out for the flight's passengers, who are believed to have risen up against their hijackers after being alerted to the other terrorist attacks via cell phone. Unfolding in more or less real time, Flight 93 depicts the hijacking from the viewpoints of those on the flight and those on the ground. Tom Burnett (Jeffrey Nordling), Mark Bingham (Ty Olsson), Todd Beamer (Brennan Elliott), and many of the flight's other, posthumously famous passengers are portrayed, as are their families, law-enforcement agents, air-traffic controllers, United employees, and cell-phone company personnel. Flight 93 originally aired in January 2006 on the A&E cable network, several months after the Discovery Channel debuted its documentary The Flight That Fought Back and several months before the feature film United 93 premiered. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Nordling, Brennan Elliott, (more)
A man is called by the military to defend himself against long-ago charges of criminal misconduct in this made-for-cable drama based on a novel by Nelson DeMille. Ben Tyson (Don Johnson) has done well for himself 30 years after his tour of duty in Vietnam -- he's a successful businessman and happily married to a beautiful woman, Marcy (Sharon Lawrence). But Tyson's contented life is shattered when a book is published accusing him of being responsible for a bloody ambush in a field hospital that took the lives of a number of Vietnamese civilians. Tyson is recalled to duty by the army to answer these charges in a court martial. As his professional and personal lives begin to buckle under the strain, Tyson must defend his actions, as well as his responsibilities to his comrades and himself, to prosecutor Major Karen Harper (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Don Johnson's son, Jesse Johnson, plays the young Ben Tyson in Vietnam flashback sequences. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Johnson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, (more)
Based on a novel by William H. Armstrong, the made-for-TV Sounder was a remake of director Gordon Parks' 1972 theatrical feature of the same name. This is the story of 11-year-old black youngster David Daniel Lee Robertson III, known throughout the film as "Boy." When his sharecropper father is arrested and sentenced to five years at hard labor after stealing food to feed his family, Boy embarks upon a journey to find out where his father has being imprisoned. Accompanied by his dog Sounder, Boy also makes the arduous crossover from boyhood to manhood with the help (and sometimes hindrance) of various people along the road. Kevin Hooks, who played Boy in the original film, directed the remake, while Paul Winfield, the original Father, is here cast as Teacher. Sounder first aired January 19, 2003, as a component of the ABC anthology The Wonderful World of Disney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl Lumbly, Suzzanne Douglas, (more)
Adapted by Lynda LaPlante from her own 1983 British miniseries of the same name, the ABC four-parter Widows was set in motion by a bungled art heist, in which three thieves (and a possible fourth) were betrayed and killed. Rather than grieve over their fallen husbands, the three widows of the thieves -- Dolly (Mercedes Ruehl), Linda (Rosie Perez), and Shirley (Brooke Shields) -- join forces to complete the original "caper," and to track down their spouses' murderers. The ladies are joined by exotic dancer Bella (N'Bushe Wright), whose missing-in-action boyfriend may have been slaughtered along with the other three crooks. The American version of Widows debuted August 6, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mercedes Ruehl, Rosie Perez, (more)
- 2002
The tragically short life of one of TV's favorite funny ladies is the subject of the network-movie biopic It's Always Something: The Gilda Radner Story. The story begins in Gilda's native Canada, where as a child she develops her comic skills to overcome her shyness and feelings of inadequacy. Gravitating to show business, Gilda (played as an adult by Jami Gertz) becomes a topnotch sketch performer with the famed Second City Troupe, leading to an even more prestigious stint as one of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on the irreverent American variety series Saturday Night Live. Earning the love and devotion of TV viewers throughout the nation with such ditsy comic characters as Emily Latella and Roseanne Roseanadana, Gilda nonetheless has trouble settling down in a satisfactory romantic relationship in her private life. But after a few go-nowhere affairs and an in-name-only marriage to musician G.E. Smith, Gilda at last finds happiness as the sweetheart -- and later the wife -- of actor Gene Wilder (played by Tom Rooney), her costar in the 1982 movie Hanky Panky. Just when it seems that Gilda's life is on the right course with all cylinders clicking, she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Based on her 1989 autobiography (published the same year as her death), It's Always Something: The Gilda Radner Story debuted April 29, 2002, as part of an evening-long ABC network tribute to Radner and her career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jami Gertz, Tom Rooney, (more)
- 2002
This fact-based TV movie explores the story behind the infamous Matthew Shepard gay-bashing case, in which a Laramie, WY, college student was brutally murdered by a pair of local boys in 1998. Sam Waterson and Stockard Channing star as Judy and Dennis Shepard, the parents whose agonizing decision over whether to ask for the death penalty for one of their son's killers provides the movie with its dramatic structure. Beginning with a slow-motion re-creation of the attack on young Matthew (Shane Meier), the script moves back in time to encompass the boy's troubled adolescent romance with another boarding-school student, his previous attack at the hands of a gang while on vacation, and his tentative shot at self-actualization among like-minded friends. These flashbacks are interspersed with the central drama, in which Shepard's parents sift through their son's belongings and slowly come to a surprising decision about what to say at his killer's trial. The Matthew Shepard Story premiered on NBC on March 12, 2002, a week after HBO's The Laramie Project first aired. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- 1999
Not to be confused with the cable-television movie Strange Justice, which aired the same evening on August 29, 1999, the NBC TV movie Cruel Justice stars A. Martinez as Jerry Metcalf, the intensely protective single father of 16-year-old Amy Metcalf (Nicki Lynn Aycox). Already distraught over the fact that Amy has been raped, Jerry goes completely over the edge when his daughter's attacker beats the rap in court. Taking the law into his own hands, Jerry dedicates his life to wreaking vengeance against the smirking perpetrator. The fact that Cruel Justice was run at the tail end of the 1998-1999 TV season, a time when few people were watching, is indicative of NBC's nervous feelings about the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1999
This made-for-TV feature is based on the true story of Dean Kraft, who worked within the traditional medical community as a hands-on healer. Discovering his unique gift at an early age, Kraft (played as an adult by Anthony Michael Hall) is reluctant to utilize his healing talents, agreeing to do so only under emergency conditions. Even when he comes to terms with his abilities, Kraft must face the often hostile skepticism of "mainstream" doctors and caregivers. The story reaches a melodramatic apex when Kraft attempts to bring a doubting doctor's daughter out of a coma. Scott Davis Jones' teleplay is careful to neither fully confirm nor flatly deny Kraft's healing prowess, permitting viewers to draw their own conclusions. A Touch of Hope made its NBC network debut on October 10, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Michael Hall, Abraham Benrubi, (more)
- 1998
- PG13
Sarah Kernochan wrote and directed this nostalgic coming-of-age comedy-drama with some autobiographical touches. In 1963, budgetary problems at the East Coast boarding school Miss Godard's School for Girls, prompt a merger with a boy's academy. The girls are stunned at the prospect of going co-ed and devise a campaign to sabotage the plan. Screenwriter Kernochan, scripter of Sommersby and 9 1/2 Weeks, won an Oscar when she co-directed the 1972 documentary Marjoe, but this film marks her feature directorial debut creating comedy-drama. The upstate New York seen here is actually Toronto. The title created some confusion, since Kernochan's film received reviews the same month the 1998 New York Film Festival unspooled a new 35mm print of Sergei Eisenstein's silent classic Strike (1924). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lynn Redgrave, Gaby Hoffmann, (more)
- 1998
Angela Fischer (Barbara Mandrell) is put in a very uncomfortable position when her son Steve (Jonathan Scarfe), who has recently weathered a number of emotional difficulties, returns home with his new girlfriend Kelly Garner (Zoe McLellan) in tow. Although Steve is entranced by Kelly, Angela has a bad feeling about the girl, whose past is a matter that clearly disturbs her. As it turns out, "mother knows best," as the seemingly angelic Kelly precipitates deadly havoc throughout the Fischer household. With this made-for-TV film and the previous Stranger in the House, actress Zoe McLellan inarguably cornered the market in playing baby-faced psychos! The Wrong Girl debuted January 4, 1999 on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The made-for-TV Lies He Told is based on one of those true stories that most producers would reject outright as ludicrous and impossible were it offered as fiction. Feeling confined by his marriage to wife Cindy (Teddi Siddall) and his family and military responsibilities, USAF Sgt. Major Davis Bay (Gary Cole) senses the opportunity to start life all over again when he meets and falls in love with Alyson Haywood (Karen Sillas). Faking his own death, Bay then weds the unwitting Alyson, assuring her that he'll be able to support her once his Air Force pension comes in -- which of course it never will, since he's officially deceased. Over the next few years, Bay is forced to feed Alyson and her family a pack of outrageous falsehoods to keep from being exposed as a deserter and a bigamist, not least of which is the claim that he's on a "covert mission" for the government. When all else fails, he resorts to a series of bank robberies to support himself and his new bride. Meanwhile, Bay's mother, who has never believed that he is truly dead, comes closer and closer to shattering his wall of lies. Originally filmed for the ABC network, Lies He Told first aired March 17, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cole, Karen Sillas, (more)
- 1996
Michele Lee is star, director, producer and cowriter of this inspirational made-for-cable movie. Lee plays Dina Blake, a middle-aged mentally challenged woman living under the care of her nephew. In the tradition of Charly, Dina volunteers to test out an experimental drug designed to enhance intelligence--and within what seems like minutes, she accelerates to the level of genius. At the height of her euphoria, Dina falls in love with one of her doctors, Mitch Conlon (Robin Thomas)--who, alas, must bear the brunt of Dina's outrage when the experiment begins to fail and she painfully reverts to her former "retarded" self. Color Me Perfect made its Lifetime network debut on November 5, 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This made-for-TV shocker was inspired by a true story which occurred in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Housewife Jessica Rayner (Joanne Kerns) becomes the latest in a long line of victims when she is attacked in her own home by a vicious serial rapist and murderer who preys on blondes. The difference is that Jessica manages to survive the attack--the first victim to do so. Despite Jessica's testimony and a trail of clues, the police seem incapable of tracking down her assailant, forcing Jessica's husband Dan (Anthony John Denison) to militantly guard his wife round the clock. But it is ultimately Jessica herself who must devise the trap that will bring her attacker to justice. No One Could Protect Her debuted February 11, 1996 on ABC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joanna Kerns, Anthony John Denison, (more)
